I’m stuck in a food rut – my cooking is unfashionable and lazy

Whilst so much controversy rages right now, what with debate around a statue by the paedophile artist Eric Gill, the no-longer-HRH Prince Andrew and the appalling No 10 lockdown parties, it’s quite nice to come to a definite conclusion about something that is totally unimportant.

So here goes: I am stuck in a food rut. Obviously, I know I’m lucky to have food to put on my plate – that goes without saying – but I keep putting the same food on my plate and I’m bored of it.

As I creep further into my sixties, I realise that it has been many years since I experimented with any new recipes, and my culinary habits have slipped into some kind of late-20th-century time warp. To be honest, I still cook like a student. My problem is that I’m a lazy and reluctant cook, with a partner who couldn’t care less if he ate tinned sausages and spaghetti hoops for the rest of his life.

Almost two years on from the start of the pandemic, which forced me into preparing more meals than I normally would, I’ve completely lost my kitchen mojo and find myself repeating the same basic recipes over and over again. This sorry situation isn’t helped by the fact that I’ve got into the habit of ordering a weekly online supermarket delivery. Admittedly this saves me money, but every Friday, I sit, stumped and despairing in front of my computer, wondering what on earth we should eat the following week. So, when the app throws up the option of simply clicking on my “favourites”, my virtual trolley inevitably creates its own doppelganger every seven days.

The range of my cooking expertise has become embarrassing, like most people of my generation, I was brought up on mince dishes and so I’ve got mince covered, but only the baby step mince dishes. I still can’t make my own bechamel sauce for lasagne and anyway ever since I developed an allergy to any form of tomatoes about 15 years ago, even my favourite spag bol, staple of the 1970s, complete with lashings of smelly parmesan, is out.

Being allergic to tomatoes is quite restricting when it comes to meal planning, but there’s a Jamie Oliver tomato-free curry which works quite well and over the years I’ve mastered both an excellent chicken tagine and casserole.

However, the fact remains I have fewer than 10 go-to dishes that I can make with any confidence, and they’ve been the same 10 dishes for at least a decade. My cooking is now unfashionable, the culinary equivalent of wearing American tan tights and bright blue eyeshadow. I daren’t have a dinner party, in case guests assume I’m attempting a retro get together and wonder why we’re not in fancy dress. “Quiche, salad and baked potatoes anyone?”

There is a world of ingredients out there just waiting to be experimented with, but somehow, I got left so far behind, I don’t really know where to start and I keep forgetting to buy miso. Whilst I wasn’t paying attention, a whole new foodie lexicon developed behind my back and these days, on the rare occasion I eat somewhere frequented by young people in trendy London postcodes, I have to ask the waitress to explain the dishes to me. “What is za’atar again?”, I ask plaintively.

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Not only is my cooking unfashionable, it’s no longer responsible. I have no desire to go vegan, but I know I should be cutting down on meat. Sadly, I’ve yet to make a vegetarian meal that doesn’t look like it’s waiting to have a big juicy pork chop put on the side. I mean, I like cauliflower cheese, but I like it with sausages, and this is not the modern way. I have to rethink my diet.

I need to bring my store cupboard staples up to date too – where is my ras el hanout? I’ve still got gravy browning and pickled onions – an expert could probably guess my age and ethnicity within a five second peek. For example, I’ve got peanut butter, but I haven’t got cashew nut butter. Basically I’m an old fart, and I might as well give up and sit in the corner drinking Brown Windsor soup.

Of course, it would help if my partner wasn’t quite so wedded to his 1950s childhood staples. I mean, he still eats cornflakes, with cow’s milk and white sugar. He also has a difficult relationship with fish, having once missed a ferry due to a choking incident as a small child, which has left him with the inability to eat anything more sophisticated than cod in breadcrumbs, preferably with oven chips and peas, which is what we usually have on our knees on a Monday night in front of the quiz shows on the telly.

Ok, I know it’s late to be making new year’s resolutions, but this year, I’m going to drag my cooking into 2022. I am going to learn 10 new recipes and half of them are going to be plant-based. And no Jenny, pasta and pesto doesn’t count.